


Bloody Noses and Lessons Learned

by nothingeverlost



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingeverlost/pseuds/nothingeverlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Emma, did you give the boy a bloody nose?”</p><p>“Yes.”  She didn’t lie.  She didn’t like when other people lied to her, so it wasn’t fair to do it.  Gold never lied either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloody Noses and Lessons Learned

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in an AU in which Belle and Gold are married, and take in a foster child. Reading the file on Emma Swan is enough to awaken Rumpelstiltskin's memories. They taken in young Emma, who has been bounced around the foster care system until now. This is a year later, or thereabouts.

It wouldn’t be hard, to get past the secretary and out the front door, Emma speculated. She eyed the woman on the phone, shifting to feel for the handle on her backpack. She could be out of her in thirty seconds, and out of the school in a minute. Maybe she wouldn’t stop after that. Maybe she’d run all the way to Florida and live on the beach. She didn’t need any more school.

Belle would be sad if she ran.

Emma was almost out the door, the secretary none the wiser, when something blocked her path. Someone, actually.

“Going somewhere, dearie?” Emma looked up. It hadn’t occurred to her that they’d call _him._ People always called Belle first. They were scared of Mr. Gold.

Emma wasn’t scared of anything. “I was getting a drink of water.”

“You’ll have to wait a minute. We need to speak with the principal.” Emma sighed, but knew better that to argue with that tone of voice. She pointed to an inner door. 

“He’s in there.”

“You can leave your backpack in here, I’m sure…” he paused, looking at the nameplate on the desk. “Ms. Keller can be trusted to look after it.”

“You want me to go in there?” She’d already been lectured once by him.

“If we’re to discuss you and your actions, it seems only fair to allow you to have your say. Always stand your ground, Emma. I’m here on your behalf, but it’s your life.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, but only lightly. She didn’t feel trapped, like last week when Mayor Mills had done the same thing.

“Fine,” she said with a sigh. It’s not like Principal Manningham was going to listen to her or anything.

“Good. Now is there anything you want to tell me before we go in?”

“Michael Wheeler is an ass.” Belle would have gently reminded her that they were trying not to say words like that. Gold only corrected her when Belle was around.

“He’s the one that did this?” His finger touched her arm, just above her scraped up skin.

“He said it was an accident.” He’d thrown the soccer ball right at her, though. It was either get hit or try to dodge. She’d tried, and had fallen as a result.

“Well.” For some reason Emma couldn’t understand, the corner of his mouth quirked up. He also headed straight for the principal’s door and didn’t stop to knock. “Manningham, your secretary said something about detention for Ms. Swan?”

“Mr. Gold, I thought your wife…” Emma, standing in the doorway, almost laughed at the way Manningham’s eyes got so big so quickly.

“It’s much easier to close the shop than turn away a dozen mothers and preschoolers looking for storytime, not that it matters. I am Emma’s guardian as much as Belle is, and I’m the one you’re dealing with today.” He sat in one of the chairs, both of his hands resting on his cane. Emma remembered the picture of the sphinx she and Gold had seen in a book last week, when he was telling her stories about Egypt. He reminded her of that for some reason.

“Yes, well, uh… Emma, I’m afraid, is suspended for the rest of the day and all day tomorrow. There was an altercation on the playground…”

“Wern’t no altercation. It was a fight, and I won.” She hadn’t started it, but she sure as hell had finished it.

“Emma, remind me when we get home that we need to look up something called the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.” Gold completely ignored the principal for the moment, instead looking at her, an eyebrow raised.

“An important lesson?” Emma asked. He was big on looking things up with her rather than just giving her the answer. She thought it was stupid, the first couple of times. Now when she was bored or feeling lonely she asked him a question, just because she liked sitting in the library on the couch, with a book on her lap and his hands moving as he explained things. She wished she could have just him as a teacher. Or Miss Blanchard, who was always nice to her and gave her a cupcake one time. But she taught fifth grade, and Emma was in fourth.

“A very important one, I think. You’ll find it rather enlightening.”

“The suspension, Mr. Gold?” Manningham cleared his throat, but looked nervous when doing so.

“I assume young Mr. Wheeler is being suspended for the same amount of time.” Emma was impressed that he’d remembered the name.

“He’s not being suspended at all. Emma gave him a bloody nose. We can’t allow physical violence in our school, Mr. Gold.”

“An admirable idea, I’m sure.” Emma had looked up ‘mocking’ in the dictionary on her own, when someone had said that Mr. Gold was mocking them. She knew that he was doing it now too. “Emma, did you give the boy a bloody nose?”

“Yes.” She didn’t lie. She didn’t like when other people lied to her, so it wasn’t fair to do it. Gold never lied either. 

“Did you feel like you had a reason for hitting him?”

“He threw a ball at me, and made me fall.” She wasn’t a tattle tale, but there was the whole truth telling thing that meant she had to answer the question.

“And?” He turned the chair so he was looking right at her. It was almost like they were in the library and no one else was there with them. How did he know, though, that there was more?

“He said mean things to me.”

“I’d like it very much if you told me what those things were. Will you do that?” His voice was so soft it was almost a whisper.

“He said I was an orphan, and no one wanted me. He said my real parents threw me away like garbage on the side of the road.” She didn’t know how Michael had found out about that.

“Emma, do you remember what Belle said, about you coming home with us?”

“She said you guys picked me out special, because you’d been looking for me.” no one had ever looked for her before. They’d just put up with her. But Belle had helped her decorate a bedroom, and Gold said she could live there forever if she wanted.

“She also said that you were our family, before we ever met you.” He reached out and touched her shoulder. Emma didn’t know why she felt like crying. “That boy doesn’t know anything about our family, Emma. Or about you. I know, however, that you are a very smart girl who has learned an important lesson about not listening to fools.”

Emma nodded, looking down at her lap.

“And you know that there are better ways to handle difficult situations, right dearie?” he asked.

“I can use my words.” Belle always told her to use her words. And then she gave Emma enough time if the words took time to figure out.

“Will you promise me that next time you’ll try to use your words instead of your fists? Better to let the boy reveal to everyone else how ignorant he is abou things, I think.”

“I’ll try.” He just made her so mad, talking about her like that. And Belle and Mr. Gold, but she didn’t need to say that part; there was a difference between lying and not telling the whole truth.

“It’s important to learn lessons, but the fact is she almost broke his nose, Mr. Gold. There has to be a pun…”

“I am perfectly aware of your rules, dearie.” Emma knew what her principal was about to say. She’d heard Belle whisper once that she could bear to think of anyone using the word ‘punishment’ around Emma, not after she’d told them about the closet at her old faster house. Gold and Belle didn’t punish. They discussed things and came up with reasonable consequences.

“Than you understand…”

“Emma is to be suspended, yes. As is the other boy, as his behavior is far more troubling.”

“But..”

“I think, if you’ll read the code of conduct for your own school, you’ll find that bullying is not tolerated. You will make sure the boy and his parents understand that it is not acceptable, or there will be consequences both for yourself and this school. Do you understand?” Gold stood, and Emma, suddenly feeling lighter than she had in hours, stood too.

“Yes, Mr. Gold.”

“Good. Emma will return on Thursday, then. I assume you will make sure everything else is properly taken care of before then.” As they walked out of the office he held out his hand to Emma, who smiled shyly up at him as she took it.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked.

“We’ll have to have a conversation with Belle about more appropriate courses of action. Perhaps over ice cream tonight.” His car was parked in a red zone right in front of the office.

“And tomorrow?” Suspension didn’t sound like a happy thing.

“Tomorrow you have the option of coming to the shop with me or visiting the library with Belle.” Either option sounded more like vacation than trouble to Emma.

“If I come to the shop can we read about the fifth mending?”

“Amendment. And yes, I believe we can make time for that. There’s also two epees that need to be tested.”

“Really?” She had a wooden sword, to play with outside only after the clock incident, and fight trees and bushes, but epees were for real sword fighting.

“It seems a good time to begin to learn the proper etiquette for fencing.”

“Awesome.”


End file.
